


Hey - Deal Another Round!

by thatsrightdollface



Series: This Game of Ours - A Detective/Phantom Thief AU [3]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Detective/Phantom Thief AU, Fluff, M/M, Spoilers!!, sequel to a sequel ahahaha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13440597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Detective Shuichi Saihara has been chasing the phantom thief Kokichi Oma for so, so long – but NOW, they’ve made a deal to get to know each other as people.  Without masks, without heists (maybe?) and far from where anyone’s likely to recognize them.(Thank you again to everyone who read/left responses to the previous stories in this series~!  The existence of this sequel is thanks to you.  I hope you enjoy it, if you decide to read. :D)





	1. Looking Back (Losing on Purpose…)

**Author's Note:**

> … I guess this is otherwise known as the "sappy vacation episode finale” for this arc, ahaha! Sorry, as always, for any mistakes I made!!! I scrapped two entirely separate ideas before doing this one, and for some reason a largely-fluffy thing like this ended up feeling best. Again, I hope you enjoy it if you read. (I know I say that a lot, but it's true... :P)

It was strange to think about it, now, but Detective Shuichi Saihara had inherited his uncle’s office hesitantly at first.  He hadn’t thought he was made for ransom notes splattered in blood and gristle, seeping into the wooden veins of his desk – he hadn’t thought he’d get used to those haunted, faraway streets, all distant sirens and smoke.  He shriveled up inside himself a little the first time he’d had to tell a stranger exactly how their loved ones died, truth be told.  Like paper someone’d set on fire.  Evidence, burned.

But Shuichi had hunted and unraveled and learned, anyhow, through all those dark stories he found himself in.  What choice did he have?  The office was his, and his uncle’s detective work had to get done inside it.  He’d had Kaito Momota of the Luminary of the Stars Astronaut Bar across the street to help him out whether he asked for it or not, and he’d gone to visit his uncle when his nerves got worn raw enough to snap.  And then – and _then_ there was Kokichi Oma the phantom thief, with his infamous gang D.I.C.E.  Kokichi changed the nature of all that detective work right away, though of course Shuichi hadn’t known it at first.  They were playing a game of want and skill and knowing, then.  A game of throwing themselves through moonless nights, through sputtering neon and soggy, ruined places.  Kokichi cackling behind his plastic clown mask, eyes dizzy and wild and syrupy sweet.  Shuichi more “himself” than he’d ever, ever been before or anywhere else.

Theirs was the sort of game that had always been set to wind up in something like the kiss Kokichi gave Shuichi in a rental car out in the cold white mist of a too-early morning.  In that nervous offer, _“Do you want me to be in love with you?”_

Maybe Shuichi should’ve known he would say _“Yes,”_ too, then.  _“Yes, I want you to love me, of course I do,”_ in both awkward, hopeful teasing and his very neatest handwriting.  Despite the guy’s arrest warrants, despite everything screaming that he should keep the might of the law between them at all times.  But he _hadn’t_ known what he would say, not really, not until Kokichi offered up the question and then waited awkwardly for some sort of answer.  Waited, as long as he could stand it.

Their game had been about more than taking Kokichi in to face justice for a long time, by that point, even if Shuichi had never admitted it aloud to anyone at all.  He’d written the phantom thief a letter instead, with his answer tucked away inside.  Shuichi hoped Kokichi’s stiff shoulders would loosen, reading all he had to say – reading that his detective thought about him all the time.  He hoped he’d snicker, and maybe run a hand through his flippy hair.  It was hard for Shuichi to write about love.  It had been hard for him to pin it down into a word, even, or know it when it was staring him in the face and hoping to get kissed back. 

And _that_ led into D.I.C.E.’s latest prank.  The maze Kokichi built all through the stolen theater had been a tangled, ridiculous thing when Shuichi finally got there, and for a little while he had thought he wouldn’t be able to make his way past the modified toy helicopter-puzzles and slime ocean minigames to the heart of it.  But he _did_ , and based off how many of the solutions were inherently tangled up in his and Kokichi’s history together he thought maybe he was the only person alive who could have done it.  There were references to all kinds of memories, like the time Kokichi stole props from the set of one of Shuichi’s favorite shows so he’d get to interview all the actors.  Or the time Shuichi had vouched for one of Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. members at an urgent care when she really needed stitches.  Memories like that, gathered up through the years and put on melodramatic display. 

Kokichi had greeted him at the heart of the maze, with that cape he liked thrown dramatically over his arm, shuffling cards.  He exclaimed, “Shuichi, hey!  You know, you made pretty good time!  …That’s a lie.  Actually, both my feet fell asleep waiting for you!”     

There had been something so vulnerable in Kokichi’s voice, then, behind the supervillain monologue, behind the restless swinging around his stage.  There had been offers and promises and hungers waiting there, too…  All things Shuichi figured he might have been able to see throughout their years together if only he’d been willing to believe them.  He shivered, his smile an unintentional rigor mortis spasm, and asked what the cards were for.  Kokichi shifted in his cape, as if he wasn’t sure what to say for a second.

Then he’d offered, “That’s up to you, honestly.  You feeling ready for a showdown?”

And Shuichi had said, “Yes,” without even hesitating.

“Let me show you how much everything I’ve ever stolen means to me, then,” Kokichi said, sounding kind of like a challenger in one of those dramatic manga he liked.  “ _Nothing_.  I’ll gamble it all – and if I lose, you take everything back.  ‘Kay?  Sound like, fun, Mr. Detective?  This was always about you.”

The air smelled chemical and sweet; Kokichi cleared his throat and laughed, sitting Shuichi down.  Dealing him a hand.  The table they’d played on had been a crisp, clear crystal, sugary as rock candy and cold to the touch.  Kokichi had swung his legs a little and shoved the mask back over his hair so it mussed up his bangs.  The air had seemed electric and shifting all around them, flickering with fog-machine neon.  Supposed to look like a cartoonish reimagining of one of their streets, Shuichi figured.  A makeshift underworld.  D.I.C.E. members had fended both the police and public away from the stolen theater until their boss was good and done.  They’d wielded Super Soakers filled with crackling stuff that smelled a lot more dangerous than it actually was, and harmless firecrackers.  Things like that.

Shuichi had been amazed by the stakes, back then.  And he was still amazed months later, when most newspapers were finished printing shocked pieces about priceless artifacts stolen by the phantom thief gang D.I.C.E. finally getting returned home.  ( _Most_ newspapers.  Kaito kept pinning up the ones from around their part of Tokyo behind his bar, and it would seem they were still coming in.)  Shuichi was waiting outside the airport, just then, two tickets to someplace very far away on his phone and a lot of weird candies he definitely wouldn’t eat himself crammed in his carry-on bag.  He was waiting for Kokichi to meet him, there under a heavy blue sky.  Jostled by a crowd of strangers that whispered about a hero detective every now and then without even recognizing him.  Shuichi blinked into thick, swimmy sunlight, hardly believing any of what had happened was real.

This would be the first time he’d met up with Kokichi without expecting him to run…  At least not right away.  This would be the pair of them as people, struggling to take off their masks and learn what the promises they’d made had meant. 

“You truly, actually want to meet me after this, right?  Get to know me, the way I really am?” Kokichi had asked, back in the maze, pulling his mask over his face and getting ready to make a run for it.  He kept his voice all airy and nonchalant, which meant he had to really care about the answer.  All through the stolen theater, D.I.C.E. members were tearing down the miniature world they’d built.  Memories stuffed away again, though now Shuichi knew how much they must have mattered to Kokichi Oma.  His losing cards were face-up on the table between them, bare as another offer of love.  Kokichi could have won if he’d wanted to, Shuichi felt sure.    

And “Honestly…  _Honestly_ , I do,” Shuichi had answered.

“Invite me somewhere, and I’ll go, then.  No masks, no heists – probably.  I’m putting myself in your hands, Mr. Detective!”

And so, here they were.  Shuichi’s stomach was tight and he hadn’t been able to eat that morning.  He kept running over what he’d do if Kokichi was recognized by someone who still wanted him behind bars…  Someone who agreed with the police stations claiming D.I.C.E. must’ve been setting the world up for a new prank.  Something even bigger, something devastating.  And who’s to say they weren’t, really?  Shuichi was gambling with everything he had, giving a phantom thief a love letter to maybe use as blackmail against him.  Buying Kokichi a plane ticket under a false name; drawing him closer, whatever he was.

“I’m trusting myself to you, too, then,” Shuichi had said, and Kokichi’d been like, “Y’know. That’s true!  We could both screw each other over if we wanted, huh?”

And so, Shuichi waited, and he shifted in his casual travel shoes.  The sun beat on the back of his neck, and all through the airport parking lot families strolled by, and couples swept each other around, laughing and bickering and _knowing_ each other.  Shuichi wondered if maybe someday he and Kokichi could have what those strangers had.  If they could be restless and chasing, sometimes, and warm and soft, sometimes, and what it would be like to hear Kokichi chirp, “Oh yeah, I’m meeting my boyfriend!” as if it were the easiest thing in the world.  But nothing had ever been easy for them.  Maybe their game couldn’t have been the same if it had. 

If the chase had been easy, Shuichi figured he wouldn’t have felt the same shock seeing the knowing smirk on Kokichi’s face as he showed his detective that final hand and declared, “Looks like you’ve got me.  I lost, after all!”  This was _their_ game, no matter how difficult it had been or how many desperate, life-threatening car chases it had involved up until that point. 

After a while, Kokichi elbowed his way through the crowd wearing a fancy wig, again, and the sort of color contacts that made him seem a lot sterner than he actually was.  Not so much like the kind of guy to toss cursed diamonds around as casually as a fist full of dice.  He’d take those off as soon as they got where they were going – where no one knew them, at least not yet.  His smile shuddered and then stretched a lot wider when he saw Shuichi.  He called, “Aw man, there you are!  I didn’t know if you were gonna make it!”

“I hope that’s a lie,” Shuichi said. 

And Kokichi said, “Oh, probably.”  He waved back over his shoulder at whichever D.I.C.E. members had dropped him off – sneakily blended into the crowd, by that point – and scooped up one of Shuichi’s bags to carry without asking.  He bumped his shoulder up into Shuichi’s arm as they walked, and hinted and hinted until they stopped for fancy airport drinks with whipped cream on them. 

Kokichi was so small, so solid, up close like that.  Shuichi took a moment to process that he could reach out at any moment and take Kokichi’s hand. He wouldn’t jolt away, turning to mist on the rooftop.  Flipping off some cop over Shuichi’s head and calling, _“Later, Mr. Detective!”_   Kokichi showed off his fake passport, knowing Shuichi wasn’t going to turn him in.  When he threaded his arm around Shuichi’s waist – guiding him away from the boring regular path and on to a moving walkway – his skin was warm and soft through the sleeve of his coat.  Flesh and blood.  Only ever flesh and blood, whatever kind of stories he’d spread around to the contrary.

Maybe, if Shuichi had asked years ago, _“Hey, go on a date with me?”_ Kokichi would have left the clown mask back at D.I.C.E.’s latest hideout and said, _“Sure, where do you want to go?”_   The thought was a little like watching movie actors break character, a little like the answer to a complicated math equation suddenly coming as clear as bottled moonlight. 

Kokichi was the chase, and the game, thundering heartbeats and vertigo.  But he was also going to trade back all the priceless things he’d taken over the years, just to see the shock on Shuichi’s face…  No.  _Just to prove that he’d meant every word about loving him._   Kokichi was still going to cuss apologetically when he forgot to zip Shuichi’s bag up completely and stuff came falling out, too.  Kokichi’s shoelace was still going to come untied, and he was still expected to text his D.I.C.E. teammates when the plane landed so everybody knew their Supreme Leader wasn’t dead.

They flew across the world, then, faceless and not-quite-strangers to one another.  Kokichi read Shuichi’s novel over his shoulder on the plane, cheek squished up into his arm, murmuring jokes and commentary until he fell asleep.  Or pretended to sleep, just to see what Shuichi would do?  His breath became so, so soft, anyway.  His wig shifted a little, so Shuichi had to smooth some of his real hair back underneath.   

_I’m putting myself in your hands._

Shuichi threaded his arm over Kokichi’s shoulders, close enough to smell his soap.  He whispered, “It’s funny, seeing you so still,” but of course he wasn’t sure if Kokichi heard him.


	2. Moving Forward (… But You Know We Won, Right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thank you so much for sticking with this story all the way through!! :D This has been so much fun to write, whoa.  
> Sorry for any mistakes I made (as always!) I hope you enjoy this, if you read. <3

The next couple weeks passed by too quickly.  Kokichi Oma knew the world was chugging along back home, all the while – the Astronaut Bar guy was collecting Shuichi’s mail, and of course D.I.C.E. kept their fearless leader up to speed on all their missions around Tokyo.  His teammates texted updates with lots of awful puns, the same way they had when he’d gone undercover in that weird goth girl’s gambling castle, or when he’d infiltrated the Togami Corporation’s private security force to steal some fancy files or whatever.  Except  _this_  adventure was different, and everybody knew it.  One of Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. members had slipped him breath mints while he was packing up his bags, for instance.  Another teammate had scrounged up some slick suits for him, reminding him he had to wear something  _besides_  oversized hoodies with comic characters on them, even out of his official D.I.C.E. clown-mask uniform. 

This was the first adventure where Kokichi and Detective Shuichi Saihara had both boarded the plane at the same time, see.  This was the first time they’d hunted down their bags together, too, and the first time Shuichi had seen his personal phantom thief with messy wig-hair when they finally made it to the place where they were staying. 

After putting together his giant theater-maze plot – after receiving a letter that said yes, yes he was wanted despite everything a detective probably thought was weird about getting up close and personal with a nefarious international criminal – Kokichi had offered to follow Shuichi wherever it was in the world he wanted to go.  That had felt right, in the flickering, candy-sweet neon smoke, and it must’ve felt okay to Shuichi on some level, too.  It was unreal at the same time, though, like the sort of thing that happened to law-abiding strangers with the kinds of love lives that  _didn’t_  get them teased by their adoring gang members. 

(Wait.  A law-abiding guy wouldn’t have had adoring gang members, probably?  Nevermind.  Anyway, Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. teammates teased, but they also threatened to prank the crap out of Shuichi if he even so much as  _slightly_  hurt their leader’s feelings.   _“You really put your heart on the chopping block this time, boss.  He better at least be a good kisser!”_ Sucks for the law-abiding stranger, huh?)

The city Shuichi took Kokichi to was all crumbled cobblestones and twirling wrought iron fences, flaking their rust down on the streets like sort-of flower petals.  Or flecks from a scab, maybe, but that imagery felt like it belonged to their other, truer lives.  Kokichi walked with his detective down those crooked roads just like ordinary tourists for a little while; he brushed rust flecks off Shuichi’s coat and talked about whatever he thought might be entertaining moment to moment.  (A possibly-embarrassing amount of that turned out to be trading card game strategy, but Shuichi didn’t seem to mind.) 

They went to museums where Shuichi chatted about the historical significance of one thing or another, and Kokichi murmured about how exactly he’d steal from them.  What might be worth taking.  He tried to make his plans funny, watching Shuichi’s face out of the corner of his eye, looking prouder and prouder of himself the closer his detective came to laughing.  They ate in restaurants surrounded by people who barely saw them, and stayed up all night laughing about crazy things that had happened to them over the years.  Dissecting the thought that had gone into Kokichi’s maze back at the stolen theater; discussing which memories Shuichi might have put into his own maze, if he decided to throw together an over-the-top, uncharacteristic thing like that.  They watched a film in a language neither of them spoke, with Kokichi whispering what he  _thought_  was happening until the person behind them kicked his chair so hard he spilled his soda across Shuichi’s lap. 

It was unreal, see?  Yeah.  It was the sort of living that happened to other people, people who had never learned how to wriggle out of actual police-issue handcuffs.  People who had never nicknamed rooftop gargoyles close to their hideouts, or stolen from dangerous assholes that were probably still looking for them.  (Kokichi had gotten spooky messages from someone apparently affiliated with the “New Killing Game Lounge,” lately, so that was gonna be fun.  And don’t even get him started on the cryptic threats from that Kuzuryu yakuza clan!)  It was so unreal, actually, that Shuichi still looked surprised to see Kokichi every morning. 

“You’re up!” Shuichi might say, but in a voice that sounded like,  _“You’re still here!”_

“Hey, look at that!  I am,” Kokichi might answer.  “And I brought breakfast?  I only poisoned half of it, too, so you probably won’t even die!”

No, they hadn’t fallen back into their own lives, yet.  No, the game hadn’t shifted back into whatever it used to be.  Don’t worry, Kokichi was relieved, too, even if he’d always known their time together was going to be short.  He went from day to day knowing he was offering evidence for Shuichi’s notebooks, evidence to fill his glossy wooden desk back home.  He was going to be analyzed under oily golden lamplight, sooner or later.  That couldn’t be helped, really – it was just what detectives did.  And what did phantom thieves do?  Well, they melted back into the world’s hidden spaces, and presumably plotted out brand new schemes.  Starting from the ground up, or something.  Playing with a new rulebook Kokichi wasn’t sure of yet.

In not too,  _too_  long Shuichi was going to put his long, dark coat back on, climb up the stairs to his office and get called “Detective Saihara” by the same people who thought Kokichi should spend the rest of his life in a straitjacket.  An actual one, too, and not the tattered almost-straitjacket he and D.I.C.E. had designed to mess with people.  And that was alright, wasn’t it?  Kokichi would still wake up beside his detective, even if just for a little while, trying to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed to find he’d flailed his arms out again and maybe thwacked Shuichi in the face while they slept.  He would learn what his name sounded like breathed against his neck in the dark, with moonlight swallowing them up and papery moths beating themselves against the window.  

Sometimes Kokichi thought this break from their reality on two very different sides of the law was like a taste of something he could’ve had if he had played his cards differently a long time ago.  But other times – and he didn’t even admit this to his D.I.C.E. members, so shh – he scraped the edges of his mind for just the right things to say to make it last.   Sometimes he wondered if maybe…  If he told the best joke ever under some curtain of stars like circus-tent sequins, or if he kissed just well enough… Detective Saihara would decide Kokichi was worth whatever gamble it took to keep him close.  Take him home, sometimes.  Introduce him to his detective-y uncle.  Maybe Shuichi would decide to chase his thief across a crackling, fog-smothered rooftop because they were messing around, or just because he wanted to chase him.  Not because Kokichi had somebody’s jewelry strung around his neck and catching the moonshine like he was under a spotlight.  Putting on his show. 

Maybe, maybe.  Kokichi didn’t really believe it, though.  He’d strung together enough pretty lies to fill a dragon’s horde, so he thought he knew another lie when he saw it, thanks very much.   

By the time Kokichi realized what his and Shuichi’s game would be like when they got folded up back home like cards shuffled into a deck, he’d learned a lot of other stuff, too.  He’d learned why Shuichi first started wearing that hat that covered his eyes, for instance – been wondering that one for  _years_  – and what it was like to stop by the Astronaut Bar for an exhausted drink at four AM when the place was technically closed.  (It was  _weird_ , apparently.  Shuichi’d sometimes explode and spill his problems out to that sleepy-eyed bartender, then, and they’d end up doing sit-ups on the just-scrubbed floor for some reason?  The guy’s wife would join them, if she felt like it, maybe joking with a weirdly straight face about whether there was anyone around she needed to assassinate.)

Kokichi’d learned what Shuichi cooked when he was feeling lonely, and what kind of music he was embarrassed to have on his phone.  He’d learned that his detective thought it was cute how the terrifying, diabolical Kokichi Oma didn’t like TV shows where the bad guys won, and he’d learned Shuichi hadn’t seen nearly enough Batman movies. 

Also, a package arrived from Japan the day Kokichi figured it out, which he’d thought was dumb at first because they were just about to be heading home anyway.  But of course, Shuichi had to open the thing and sift through its contents with his serious face on.   Kokichi wouldn’t have expected anything else, honestly, but it was still sort of surreal to watch.  He threatened to keep himself entertained scribbling spoilers in the margins of Shuichi’s novels, but the detective had just gestured to the seat next to him and said this wasn’t going to take long.

Kokichi  _might_  have been bad-talking the package because he knew it was linked to another of Shuichi’s cases, and one that didn’t involve him, Detective Saihara’s personal phantom thief and very biggest admirer.  Or he might’ve been bad-talking the package because it was amazing how quickly “real life” was sucking Shuichi back in, even if he’d known it was gonna happen.  Fast as water down a drain!  Anyway, Kokichi was on a tangent about how needlessly expensive it must’ve been for Kaito Something of the weirdo Astronaut Bar to send such a hulking pile of junk and photographs across the ocean and to their supposedly-secret hotel room when Shuichi slipped a letter into his dramatically gesturing hand.

The thing started out normal enough.  Kaito greeted his “bro” and asked how his trip with “that guy who’d get them both arrested” was going – Kaito complained about all the people who brought detective jobs and clues to his bar when Shuichi was gone.  And then he was like,  _“But this case seemed special, you know?  It’s about that music shop lady.  You know the one?  She found something bad in her cellar, and we think you should take a look at it.”_

“You’re showing me case info,” Kokichi breathed, though his voice sounded pretty far away.  He hadn’t told Shuichi he’d imagined himself swinging by the detective’s office before, bringing him lunch or boba tea or comics in a paper bag that they’d read together when Shuichi looked like he needed a break from working.   He’d imagined himself in the Astronaut Bar during those four-AM bromance runs, too, ordering from the list of unintentionally cutesy space-themed drinks and chirping commentary about some case or another.  He’d imagined himself kicking off his shoes at the doorway in Shuichi’s apartment, reminding the D.I.C.E. teammates coming in behind him not to steal anything even if it was really, really cool.

He’d imagined being trusted.  Of course he had, despite everything in the world that screamed Shuichi probably wasn’t ever going to trust him, really.  You could love a compulsive liar phantom thief, you could obsess over him for years and even make it all the way through a maze of his best puzzles and favorite memories, but how easy would it be to trust him?  Shuichi was a detective, he was honorable and solid and –   

“Yeah,” Shuichi said.  Ducking his head, looking up with eyes gone very melty and soft.  Unsure, self-conscious eyes, yes, but also looking kind of like Shuichi had made up his mind about something.  “I was thinking we could work this one together?  It’ll make sense if you read the whole letter, I promise.  Or, you know what?  Look at these.”    

While Shuichi rifled through the package a little more – past paper diagrams and sample bags with bits of tile and something that might’ve been dried blood swabbed up with a q-tip, mostly – Kokichi found himself sort of lying on autopilot.  Something about not wanting to get himself involved with the lame, do-gooding side of the law.  About how the idea of being a detective partner sounded pretty disgusting, or how all D.I.C.E. was bound to disown him, now. He scooped up the photographs Shuichi offered him hungrily. 

There was a blonde woman with airy music notes pinned in her hair, angling her camera down so Shuichi could see the monochrome tile buried under her cellar floor.  She’d been prying the planks up to do renovations and…   Well, wouldn’t you know it.  The door underneath had a pulsing red eye right in the middle, crooked and still lit up from somewhere deep inside. 

“The Killing Game Lounge?” Kokichi hissed through his teeth. 

And Shuichi said, “Yeah.  Seems like an entrance nobody’s found before…  Kaito thinks it’s still active, too.”

 “Wow, that’s…  Amazing?”  Kokichi hoped his voice reminded Shuichi just how completely he had despised the Killing Game Lounge back in its day. How could a game where people died be any fun?  Kokichi had been told his voice got low and sing-song scary, thinking about all that useless death. Bodies piled up like game chips in the middle of the table. 

“This isn’t how I thought I’d ask you,” Shuichi said.  Voice halting, a little, like it had a lot more often when Kokichi first met him.  Stop and go, like a video that wasn’t finished buffering.  “But…  A partner like you…”

“Yes,” Kokichi said.  He laughed, too loudly for the bloody tile Kaito had put in little baggies, too loudly for the hotel room in that stranger’s city full of wandering vines.  But not too loudly for Shuichi, who was watching him in almost the same way he did when he was wearing his clown mask, balanced on the edge of some rooftop and waggling diamonds in the air.  Sing-songing about how he’d drop them in the gutter to feed the alligators.  A sort of bafflement; a sort of need.  “You already admitted you’re willing to be loved by me, so asking me out is the next logical step.”

Shuichi laughed, then, crumpling Kaito’s letter over his face and slumping a little in his chair.  His hands were shaking, and Kokichi didn’t have to run a prominent sleuthing business to know what was up with him.

“Oh, you meant  _detective_  partner,” Kokichi said, very sly and just as warm and gentle as he knew how to be.  “I guess I can be that, too.  Now, let’s take a look at what we’ve got for the heist!  I mean case?  I mean heist, who are we kidding.”

It took a little snapping in his ear and a few, “Hey.  Shuichi.  Hey!”-s to get his detective back on task, but Kokichi was already sort of swallowed up in his dreaded Scheme Mode.  (As some of his D.I.C.E. teammates tended to call it.)  He was plotting out how he could scribble on a map where all the closest known Killing Game Lounge outposts used to be, so this “Music Shop Lady” would know what to stay away from if she decided to go get a hotel room or something.  He was offering to get D.I.C.E. to scrounge up the replica key they’d made to break in and mess with Junko Enoshima way back when, so they could see if it still worked.  D.I.C.E. would probably be open to skulking around for the forces of good, too, for a while at least.  Those guys loved new games.  Being “evil” was fun, but Kokichi hadn’t gotten to be D.I.C.E.’s Supreme Leader by wanting to do the same thing on the playground every day.  There were probably plenty of clues to steal.

Plotting was different, it turned out, when it was squished up next to Shuichi and mixed in with joking about whether or not Shuichi would be any good at becoming an official phantom thief apprentice.  (The consensus was, “Eh, probably not,” though Kokichi didn't really mean it.)  And sure, they both knew Kokichi  _could_  run at any time.  He could toss off that word, “Partner” like a cape, whenever he wanted.  He could become a mystery again.  But why would he do a thing like that when he was already imagining the sort of heist they’d pull together? 

When Kokichi mentioned the threats he’d gotten from something called a New Killing Game Lounge, Shuichi grabbed his wrist and demanded to know why he hadn’t said anything earlier.  The worry on his face was almost enough to drag Kokichi out of Scheme Mode.  (Almost.)  When Shuichi showed off diagrams Kaito’d drawn of the door in comparison to other secret Killing Game Lounge pathways unearthed in the past, Kokichi found himself saying, “Hey, hey.  Good for Kaito and all, but you just made  _me_  your partner, right?” 

Maybe Shuichi wouldn’t ever join D.I.C.E., and maybe Kokichi would never get his name in script under Shuichi’s on the detective office’s door, but a future for the pair of them felt so close he might have just reached out and grabbed it.  Like Shuichi’s wallet, or an antique stained-glass vase back at the museum.  It was a future where Shuichi came to D.I.C.E.’s game nights – bringing soda and liquor in crinkling plastic bags because he’d lost last month and had to pay his dues.  It was a future where Kokichi had thanked Shuichi’s uncle for everything without the old man really knowing why…  A future where Shuichi might chase him down, or call him up, or yell his name down the hall knowing he was never  _too_  far away.

It was strange to think about it, now, but Kokichi might have gone into the phantom thief game just to end up right where he was, then.  Teasing Shuichi and leaning his chair back, folding his hands on his lap like a supervillain, putting on his creepiest diabolical smile until he couldn’t hold it anymore and it cracked open like glass.  See, that was the benefit of clown masks!  Never lose your ominous poker face.  

Outside their hotel room, a strangers’ city waited, tangled up in ivy and rust. Weeds sprouted between the cobblestones just the same as they did through the concrete outside Shuichi’s detective office.  The sky seemed so much bigger, here. Another round was starting – another layer to their game, a twist in the rules.  But it wasn’t too boring, trying a hand or two on the same side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (PS – In case you’re interested, I DO have other potential ideas for this universe, but I think they’d work better as one-shots/distinct arcs sometime in the future~ I’ve always meant to end this arc on an open-ended feeling of possibility and adventure… So I really hope that comes through!!!)  
> I’ve said it before – like, right above the story, ahahaha – but thanks again for reading. I really, really hope you’ve had fun. :’)   
> Have a wonderful day~


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